Have you seen these journalist/analyst types?

Since a recurring theme of discussion here is the truthfulness or truthiness of various reports and claims regarding China, I compiled a list of figures illustrating the very different styles practiced by some journalists and analysts. Can you attach some names to them?

It should be pointed out that you can’t have a “line” with just one data point…so #1/7/8 don’t work.

If #10 is the “ideal” in that you forgo a “straight” line in order to account for all data points, then the outliers should also be included.

But if you want a graphical representation of China’s progress, factoring in the myriad influences that have an impact on it, then I guess I’d rather just go for the truthiness. In fact, for many things, if given the choice, I’d take Colbert.

It should be pointed out that you can’t have a “line” with just one data point…so #1/7/8 don’t work.

So what if we all know it doesn’t make sense? It doesn’t seem to stop such reporting method being deployed in the media, even some reputable ones. In fact, Slide 1 is exactly how Professor Wing Suen, from whom I got the idea for these drawings, described journalism in general.

Admin,

Figure 10 looks like an example of Least Squares Fitting.

I was also trying to illustrate the importance to recognize and discard outliers before generating overall theories.

chinayouren,

Haha. For me, Slide 9 was a dig at these reporters who insist on being fair and always place two sides into the same story, no matter how ridiculous one side might be sometimes. Someone once said: “If candidate A says it’s raining and candidate B says it’s sunny outside, the reporter should just look outside the window instead of reporting both.”

To DJ:
the pictorial representations are cute. But what does slide 1 actually mean in terms of “reporting style”? Besides, at the very least, one has to recognize that reporters can do “factual” pieces and “editorial” pieces, for which different standards should be in effect. So when this Professor tries to describe “journalism in general”, I don’t know how you generalize between (at least) two different forms of reporting. Perhaps he’s engaging in a bit of slide 1 himself.

If it were up to me, I’d much rather have both sides to the story. I can then decide which side I believe more. While your little quote is cute, I wonder where a reporter can find said “window” when it comes to China.

Just to clarify: I do not see all reporters/columnists using type 1, 7 or 8 styles. But every now and then, some writings clearly strike me as such. That’s how I got a chuckle out of seeing Professor Wing Suen’s figures and decided to draw a set of my own. And of course he was purposely generalizing. That’s just humor, isn’t it?

Here is an example of slide 1 (or 8 depending on one’s view) because I somehow wrote precisely about this problem months ago and still clearly remember it. As I noted at the end,

This post is prompted by a Washington Post article “Burdened By China’s Gold Standard” written by Ariana Eunjung Cha. Ms. Cha quoted a single comment left on the Tiexue Forum after Du Li was unable to defend her title in the woman’s 10m air rifle event, which produced the first gold of the Beijing Olympic game

The state spent so much money on you, provided you with such good facilities, gave you four years to train . . . You disappoint your countrymen.

to establish the theme of the article

In China’s obsessive quest to capture more medals than any other country at the Summer Games, the performance of every athlete has been deemed critically important. So those who have fallen short of expectations — securing a silver instead of a gold, or worse, winning no medal at all — have been vilified.

I am not going to discuss Ms. Cha’s professionalism in journalism, lest someone accuse me of obsessing with boring and minor stuff in “western media” again. But her single data point statistics surprised me since my impression of the public reaction to Du Li’s 5th place finish was one overwhelmingly sympathetic and supportive. So I went to Tiexue to look for her source. I couldn’t find it but ran into this article and thought it interesting for our English readers.

Wait a second here. Recognizing that she’s a writer for the Washington Post, and I’m presuming you’re not, she should be held to a more rigorous standard. Nonetheless, it seems misleading to suggest that she “used one data point”, when she in fact listed several Chinese athletes who failed to win gold and chronicled the public reaction, and had her postulate supported by a university psychologist. So if you’re going to question her article, or the theme thereof, at least do so on the basis of the entire thing, and not just a convenient snippet. Otherwise, if she’s the pot, then you’d make a good kettle.

Of course I knew she was working for Washington Post, and frankly that knowledge added to my incredulity. Ms. Cha did write about a few more other athletes and quoted a couple of experts regarding pressure put on and faced by those athletes. But the only data point supporting her sweeping claim “So those who have fallen short of expectations … have been vilified” is a very selectively picked comment left on a public Internet forum. Ms. Cha was either blind to and more likely chose to ignore all other and substantial data points standing in the way of her intended theme. Come to think of it, this article of hers is representative of style 8. One of the early comments left at WaPo said the best:

Tomorrow’s headline: “anonymous chat room user in China said in one message on 12:34 pm that, quote, “they sucks, lol”, which exact great pressure on Chinese athletes to win gold.

Is this what journalism is these days?

FOARP,

Relax. This is meant for fun. Besides, these styles are not meant to be checked against only “western” media practices. I see many of the same problems in Chinese media as well. In particular, where do you see style 2, 5 and 7 often?

To DJ:
““So those who have fallen short of expectations … have been vilified”” – according to Ms. Cha.

Here are a few other “data points” from which she may have developed her theory, or perhaps used to support it: (they’re right from the article)
“The People’s Daily said that “losers need more warm support from the society and from all walks of life. A little bit of your encouragement and attention will help them out of the shadow of failure, warm them up, inspire them and make them feel more confident.” I wonder why the People’s Daily would feel compelled to say something like that…hmmm….maybe because those who didn’t win had been vilified, perhaps?
“China’s soccer team, long the butt of jokes, failed to advance to the knockout stage of the tournament after being pummeled 3-0 by Brazil on Wednesday night. The China Daily newspaper featured a special box this week quoting people insulting the team” – do insults a vilification make? To each his own, I suppose…
“”The Chinese press is putting a lot of pressure on the athletes, and it’s really hard to handle,” Emmons said.” – that’s a foreigner’s assessment, so maybe you should just discount that outright.

Now, since this was a journalistic piece and not direct reporting of any one event, I’m sure she used the stuff that would help make her point. And that, I’m afraid, is her discretion. You are certainly free to believe her conclusions, or not. You are equally welcome to make the point that those who didn’t win gold in China were nonetheless celebrated and feted in the streets. And I look forward to what will undoubtedly be a tsunami of data points in support of that position.

skc,
That’s all well and good if you know ms.cha used other “data points”, albeit, the data points you mentioned are not sufficient to show a trend that is somehow worth noting in the Washington post. More likely, cha is doing the “some people believe” hedging so she can assert her own 2-cents, which is fine but that article wasn’t an op-ed. News people do this all the time, as highlighted by Jon Stewart 😛

of course, this whole issue is a bit off topic, and imo, athletes are generally under a lot of pressure. Athletes who don’t perform are vilified(listen to sports talk radio), the question is the extent and who cares?

[MOCKING TONE ON]
No Chinese sports fan in his/her right mind would put the national men’s soccer team in the same category with other athletes. Frankly insulting the men’s soccer team is a national past time of its own right, for good reasons.
[MOCKING TONE OFF]

Now seriously, in Du Li’s case, Ms. Cha was clearly way off the mark. The overall opinions expressed by the Chinese public was overwhelmingly sympathetic and supportive. I know because I did my own research, in Tiexue and other popular forums. Were there some views expressed along the line as described by Ms. Cha? Sure. There are always someone with a different view. And they were clearly a minority view. So it’s rather interesting why Ms. Cha decided to pick one and only one of that kind of data points.

Let’s use an analogy here. Even today Bush gets a 30% favorable rating in the U.S. But does that make him a popular man? You know I can easily supply evidence towards that theme, right?

To Yo:
“Athletes who don’t perform are vilified” – could not agree more. So my expectation would be that, with China’s first Olympics ever, home-grown athletes who underperformed would have been more likely to be vilified than usual. Likewise, if the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team doesn’t win the gold medal in 2010 in Vancouver, I expect they’d be crucified, forget about minor inconveniences like vilification. So if the reaction is self-evident, how many more data points than 4 would you need to establish a trend that you fully expect to see? If anything, I would lend more credence to someone who said: “jeez, whoop-dee-doo, tell me something I don’t know. How does something so obvious warrant a column in the WP?” But DJ’s beef, I don’t get.

As for Jon Stewart (and Stephen Colbert), whatever they’re saying, I’m probably buying. And since Ms. Cha is the one with the WP column, she does get to assert her 2 cents worth. No point getting bent out of shape about it. If you or DJ had your own column, I wouldn’t begrudge you the same privilege.

To DJ:
“The overall opinions expressed by the Chinese public was overwhelmingly sympathetic and supportive.” – and you’re obviously entitled to that opinion. And Ms. Cha should be entitled to hers. It’s unfortunate that she’s the one with the WP column, but c’est la vie. Just because you disagree with her opinion doesn’t mean that her opinion, or methods of formulating thereof, are without merit. And if you’re correct and she’s wrong, then it’s curious that the People’s Daily felt compelled to write what they did. Perhaps they’re in the habit of addressing the stubborn minority.

As for your analogy, show me a poll with some degree of randomisation and scientific rigor showing that 30% of Chinese people felt the athletes who lost should be vilified, and 70% do not, then we’ll talk about parallels.

@skc 18,
Well my issues with these news people is they report stuff, usually something trivial, as if it’s A) a systemic problem in china B)it’s special in china. As I said before, her methods don’t prove either, extent is key.

“I wouldn’t begrudge you the same privilege”
As a reader, I wouldn’t put any journalist on any pedestal, NYT, WP, whoever. That’s keeping them honest, especially in this ultra competitive envirnoment of getting ad revenues. But then again, this is somewhat a non-issue for me because i’m a NYT reader and cha’s from the wp, i didn’t pay for her 2-cents! Moral crisis-averted.

Take it easy. I didn’t set out to prove what exactly the breakdown in the Chinese fans’ reactions was. My point had been and still is that Ms. Cha’s methodology demonstrated in that article is less than acceptable. And for this particular post, I was merely using it as an example of some shoddy journalism practices. If you don’t agree, fine.

The deeper problem with Ms. Cha in that article is that she was mixing up high expectations and pressure placed on some athletes and subsequent disappointment felt when results were less, with vilification. Disappointment is natural. Vilification, well, that takes someone both dumb and malicious to do it. And Ms. Cha was painting all of the China as dumb and malicious with a sweeping claim that “So those who have fallen short of expectations … have been vilified” based on a single rant by some nobody.

You also seem to be confused about these two separate issues. Pressure placed on and received by the athletes were real and acknowledged by those experts quoted. That’s why there were calls, including from People’s Daily as you pointed out, to reduce the pressure on them. But this is not an evidence that those missing the gold were vilified.

On the other hand, I wish you would give me some credit or benefit of the doubt here. I do homework on those type of things. When it is reported that someone said something, I dig out the transcript of what really was said. When it is reported that the mood in some forum is such and such, I go read a whole bunch of them and make my own judgment. When someone is held up as a dissenting hero, I look for what he/she actually advocate in his/her own language. So when I said that there were strong outpouring of sympathy for Du Li’s disappointment, I didn’t just pull a rabbit out of a hat.

The Western media are biased and incomplete in its coverage. But there is no need for Chinese to be upset about that. It matters to Westerners, their audience. It matters little to the Chinese. I do not know why the Western media are biased and keep their audience mis-informed. It must serve some social functions.

Let’s not have the pot call the kettle black. All media is biased to some extent, and maybe even to a large extent. It reflects the views of their ownership and editorial staff, and the views of their individual societies. I personally don’t think you can group media into “western” or “eastern”, etc. but just the country they belong to and whether they are liberal or conservative.

I agree with BXBQ that there’s really no need for Chinese or westerners to be upset by what other media report. First of all, most people don’t follow international news that much. Second, local news always trumps foreign news. Third, if there were complete coverage, most wouldn’t bother to read the entire article but only the first few paragraphs.

For the people who are interested in more in-depth analyses, they’ll migrate to magazines such as The Atlantic in the States or similar publications in other countries. I think the key factor and certainly something that I appreciate is the availability of information on the net, where we can all go to other countries’ media to get a more balanced perspective. I thought SKC made a good point when he mentioned that there is usually an opinion ratio, rather than a black/white viewpoint.

To Yo #20:
That’s a good one. Since I don’t read either paper, I really have nothing invested whatsoever.

To DJ #22:
Listen, if the crux of your objection was with word-choice (ie. vilified is too strong a word), why not just say that? Instead, you seemed to go with “so-and-so is a bad journalist using deplorable methods”. That seemed gratuitous. And gratuitous behaviour is going to elicit responses…as you’ve seen.

“I was merely using it as an example of some shoddy journalism practices. If you don’t agree, fine.” – the second part is self-evident. But even here, does word-choice = journalism, such that a poor display of the former produce a shoddy output of the latter, whereas a fantastic display of the former results in a terrific example of the latter? You decide. I already have.

I didn’t object to word-choice by Ms. Cha. Frankly, vilification is not a wrong description of that particular rant quoted in the article. I objected to her selection of that unrepresentative rant and characterization with that grossly sweeping claim.

And I must say, your statement “you seemed to go with “so-and-so is a bad journalist using deplorable methods”. That seemed gratuitous.” is rather gratuitous. I didn’t exactly attack Ms. Cha as a person or reporter in all of her work back then and now. My comments were narrowly focused on noting this type of practice in that particular article was not good journalism. May I suggest that you assume and read too much out of my words?

To DJ:
ok, so it’s not the word you object to, even though you went to the trouble of bolding it twice. And the word is in fact representative of the sentiment of the quote that engendered its use. So now it’s that she chose an unrepresentative rant? To whom is it unrepresentative? That you find the rant to be unrepresentative makes her work (in this case) an example of shoddy journalism? So then, any article based on a sentiment that you find to be unrepresentative of some unspecified group is shoddy? Is that reading too much out of the myriad objections you’ve unfurled over her article? To me, not every piece of work I disagree with is shoddy; sometimes I can just disagree with something. I think you too could’ve simply disagreed with her article without the fuss and the muss. Which leads me to my second point: she wrote an entire article; and you’re picking on one sentence? I suppose that’s better than the post last summer that picked on the title (something about the “politics” of athlete selection for the games)…but not by much.

Regarding Ms. Cha’s article, I took my time back then to research this issue and spent hours trying to find the text and context of her quoted source. I was making an informed claim rather than issuing an emotional opinion. What factual knowledge do you possess to challenge me? What do you know about this particular matter?

If you would excuse my bluntness, why are you so defensive whenever some of us challenge undeserved negative reporting on China, whatever the merit of the criticism?

[KIDDING MODE ON]
P.S. Please do not reply “I am not defensive!” That would be a wrong answer.
[KIDDING MODE OFF]

Well, I do come here for entertainment. But I’m happy to argue if I think someone’s not making sense. After all this time, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what about that article rubbed you the wrong way. The reasons seem to change with every subsequent post. I’ll be happy to challenge you until you figure it out.

I’m impressed you spent the time to research it. But perhaps Ms. Cha did too. So my point boils down to this: if you want to disagree with her, be my guest. But the fact that you might disagree with her in this case doesn’t make her work in this case any shoddier than yours.

How was her report “negative”? Again, are you focused on one sentence, to the exclusion of the rest of the article? Were the CHinese athletes not burdened by the need to succeed? To me, there is no merit to the criticism in this case. It’s not even a negative report. I’m sure American athletes were burdened by the need to win in Salt Lake in 2002, or in Atlanta in 1996, moreso than usual as the host team. LIkewise, and as I said, the Canadian team will have added pressure in 2010. BTW, my comment about crucifixion of the Canadian Men’s Hockey Team if they don’t win gold is certain to be figuratively, if not literally, true. So to me, even bringing this article up is yet another example of making mountains of molehills. Happens all the time on this site from folks like you. And that sentiment you detect is annoyance, brought to you in an intentionally-sarcastic tone. I suggest you get used to it.

Oh well. This debate between us, like some before it, is unlikely to ever get resolved. I made a good faithed effort to respond to your challenges, yet all I got was “The reasons seem to change with every subsequent post.” So be it. There is probably no need to go on with it.

That annoyance of yours, may I suggest again, is a sign of defensiveness. I am interested to learn what is its root cause.

As for your intentionally-sarcastic tone, I can definitely sense it. I deploy it fairly often in my writings too. Perhaps we can exchange tips on the tactics of its usage. Oh, don’t worry. You are not hurting my feelings. 😉

Actually, I’ve noticed many of the same things that you’ve pointed out DJ. I’ve often read news reports that paint sweeping generalizations based on very limited data.

The article in question wasn’t an oped, but rather an actual news item. It seems apparent to me that Ms. Cha was selectively choosing evidence to support her theory, while ignoring what seems to be the majority opinion among Chinese internet users.

The article used the fact that there were huge pressures on Chinese athletes at the Olympics, a fact that should be acknowledged, and extrapolated from that that the Chinese people viewed those that failed to win Gold at the Olympics as failures. One or two internet users does not the Chinese people make, especially if they’re even in the minority on the specific forum they’re on.

Oftentimes, I feel that journalists write articles like it’s an assignment in an essay writing class. “What do you think about….why?”, instead of treating the articles as news articles that should seek to inform readers of as much as possible, including differing viewpoints.

@ James: Maybe I can explain why you’ve seen what you have in terms of slanted reporting. There’s a dirty little secret in the business, and this is how it works.

Reporter gets story assignment. Reporter does limited research because of limited time and decides how the story is to be written. Reporter writes story. NOW, reporter needs to give story substance by quoting sources so reporter starts calling different sources. Reporter uses quotes from sources that agree with the general tenor of the article and deep sixes any quotes that do not. Reporter turns in story five minutes before deadline.

Most reporters majored in literature and have no real background in terms of the subjects they are reporting. Some learn on the job but many do not, so they parrot whatever they hear and most get their opinions talking to other reporters. That’s why I prefer magazine articles which are usually written by people with some background in the subject who have more time to do their research. They might still be somewhat slanted since the author, having background, also holds opinions. Concerning China in particular, I’ve noticed that most magazine articles are much fairer in their coverage.

DJ did forgot to add one final drawing, which would show data points with no lines, no highlights, no nothing. That would cover China’s coverage of yesterday’s fire at Beijing’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the CCTV tower complex. From today’s NY Times:

There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. The home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV’s brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower.

Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, pcitures of the burning hotel had been removed from the country’s main Internet portals. By afternoon, the story had been largely buried.

A directive sent out by propaganda officials made it clear that the authorities were eager to reduce public attention to the blaze, a colossal embarrassment that many people believe augurs poorly for the new year. “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,” read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua’s dispatches. “The news should be put on news areas only and the comments posting areas should be closed.”

Steve, your explanation makes sense, and goes along with what I usually hear about how journalists operate. That just leaves me wondering why papers have foreign bureaus, if all they’re going to do is something they can easily do in an American office. I would have thought that journalists operating outside of the US could quickly become knowledgeable in the area they’re in. I agree that magazines usually offer much more balanced and informative coverage. Perhaps newspapers are the minor leagues for journalists.

Yes, there is something very stupid going on in the propaganda department lately. Someone is getting nervous in Beijing. But now at least they have forced Xinhua to apologize publicly. Isn’t this rather unusual? Looks like some big shot at Xinhua got his ears tweaked from above!

Translation to English in their site:
Beijing Fire Control Bureau says CCTV staff responsible for the construction of the new TV complex, hired staff to ignite large festive firecrackers outside the building, and caused the fire. The move did not receive approval from related authorities. The fire has caused severe damage. CCTV sincerely apologizes for the damage that the fire caused, and the inconvenience it has brought to the public.

Note that the news are clear: “DID NOT RECEIVE RELATED AUTHORITIES”. It is not the authorites fault, of course, it is the stupid employees who forgot to get that permit. Now it is all clear and we can go to sleep in peace: the harmony is preserved.

From Xinhua’s behaviour in the last 24 hours, we can see a pattern coming up, in line with many cases before.

@ James: I think the guys from the NY Times’ Beijing bureau are pretty fair. Pomfret from the Washington Post lived in Beijing for a few years and can have some good insights, but he’s not at the bureau anymore. I think Stratfor online is very fair (check out their daily podcasts) and after that, I just bounce from site to site. My local paper has no foreign bureaus so I have to rely on the web and FM for most of my information.

@skc,
my opinion of the wp has gone down, most recently, some wp reporter asked what i thought was a really stupid question to obama during last night’s news conference. And reutuers, man, what’s do you need to be a reporter there, a pulse?! NYT’s is generally good imo, and even the wall street journal, although a bit dry.

To DJ #32:
“That annoyance of yours, may I suggest again, is a sign of defensiveness.” – Thanks for the psychological assessment. The next time I get some couch time, I’ll be sure to have someone look into it further. Though not sure what I have to feel defensive about, since you’re the one who feels like he’s being challenged. Like I always say, to each his own.

Oh, and just so we’re clear, the reason why I think you feel like you’re being challenged is from this quote: “I made a good faithed effort to respond to your challenges”. If you feel that I have overstated, misrepresented, misconstrued, or interpreted your sentiments out-of-context, please accept my apologies in advance.

To Yo #39:
I don’t read US papers. But I do watch CNN from time to time. The last time I did this was right after the US Airways jet landed in the Hudson. Blitzer was on air live, interviewing a survivor on his cell phone. He must have asked the same question of that guy 4-5 times, regarding something completely mundane considering that guy just survived a plane crash. My impression of why he did this was because they had no boots on the ground (or I suppose, in this case, swimmers in the water), and he had dead air to fill lest another network scoop the breaking story. And I wonder sometimes why established newsfolks embarrass themselves in this way. Things today are certainly not like when those WP guys (what were their names again) broke Watergate.

To Steve and Chinayouren:
I was wondering if/when someone would mention that fire story, particularly in the context of the topic of this thread. But I think CHinese journalism probably falls outside the purview of an analysis such as this one, owing to it’s “unique Chinese characteristics”.